#but we all lived

[hack-saw2004]

TWO HOURS AGO: an incredible photo taken by a ut austin student capturing something deeply poetic in my opinion, a line of state troopers eagerly waiting to arrest student protesters standing just behind a sign that reads "what starts here changes the world. its starts with you and what you do each day."

#free palestine #end aid to israel #current events #palestine genocide #let gaza live #west bank under attack #save palestine #bds movement #end the genocide #end the occupation #ut austin #palestine solidarity coalition ut austin #university of texas austin #students for justice in palestine #austin texas #acab #boycott divest sanction #from the river to the sea #free palestine in our lifetime #no one is free until we are all free #america is a fascist police state

[braxiatel]

I honestly and truly believe all good AUs should be a little “”””ooc”””” in the sense that good characterisation involves understanding that changes a characters backstory and circumstances will have an effect on how they respond to the world around them

Good characterisation isn’t about creating a perfect 1:1 canon replica it’s about understanding why a character is different in your work and about grounding the changes you do deliberately choose to make in canon character traits

#also you know art is subjective doesn’t just mean quality wise #we all view fiction through the lense of our own lives and thus we all interpret it in our own unique way #writing #the void collection

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

#transgender #trans history #transsexual #transphobia #Magnus Hirschfeld #holocaust #holocaust denial #book burning #j.k. rowling #jk rowling #just in case you missed what i mean by all this: go fuck yourself anon :) #trans people have always existed #and we will always exist #if you really wanna pick a fight with me over well-documented history then you better bring in some sources to back your shit #queer history #queer #lgbt+ #lgbta+ #lgbt #lgbt history #edit: i finally got around to those damn image IDs. i am so very sorry for totally forgetting that's my bimbo moment of the month #also real quick i thought about adding an image of the actual building but the only one i can find has a Nazi parade in front of it #it was taken the day of the book burning raid and honestly if i were to include it then i'd add it to the first few paragraphs #and i think the story's better told when you uphold the hope Magnus Hirschfeld and all the researchers he worked with had #also keeps being brought up: yes Hirschfeld was a eugenicist. it was a popular belief set that was only discredited after WW2 #Hirschfeld died in 1935. he literally didn't live long enough to see science turn against those beliefs and practices #considering how he changed his mind on transitions i like to think he would've changed his mind on eugenics too if he'd lived

[panstarry]

heads up: this games charity bundle was finally approved on itch.io! it opens this friday, april 12th, and will run for a week. all proceeds will go to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund.

you can check out the bundle on itch.io and follow @vgforpalestine on twitter for more updates!

—

EDIT: as of april 20th, 2024 this bundle is now live!!

#free palestine #itch.io #charity bundle #video games for palestine #palestinian relief bundle #pan talks #just got the email that the project is finally live after a couple tehcnical hiccups and itchio road bumps here and there #they said we could share so i figured i'd post abt it here on tumblr since it appears that they're not on here o7 please boost! #i have a zine in this one but please be sure to check out all of the work

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

#due to the Great Data Decay academics write viciously argumentative articles on which episodes aired in what order #at conferences professors have known to engage in physically violent altercations whilst debating the air date number of household viewers #90% of the couch gags have been lost and there is a billion dollar trade in counterfeit “lost copies” #serious note: i'll be honest i always assumed it was english imperialism that made shakespeare so inescapable in the 19th/20th cent #like his writing should have become obscure at the same level of his contemporaries #but british imperialists needed an ENGLISH LANGUAGE (and BRITISH) writer to venerate #and shakespeare wrote so many damn things that there was a humongous body of work just sitting there waiting to be culturally exploited... #i know it didn't happen like this but i imagine a English Parliament House Committee Member For The Education Of The Masses or something #cartoonishly stumbling over a dusty cobwebbed crate labelled the Complete Works of Shakespeare #and going 'Eureka! this shall make excellent propoganda for fabricating a national identity in a time of great social unrest. #it will be a cornerstone of our elitist educational institutions for centuries to come! long live our decaying empire!' #'what good fortune that this used to be accessible and entertaining to mainstream illiterate audience members... #..but now we can strip that away and make it a difficult & alienating foundation of a Classical Education! just like the latin language :)' #anyway maybe there's no such thing as the 'greatest writer of x language' in ANY language? #maybe there are just different styles and yes levels of expertise and skill but also a high degree of subjectivity #and variance in the way that we as individuals and members of different cultures/time periods experience any work of media #and that's okay! and should be acknowledged!!! and allow us to give ourselves permission to broaden our horizons #and explore the stories of marginalized/underappreciated creators #instead of worshiping the List of Top 10 Best (aka Most Famous) Whatevers Of All Time/A Certain Time Period #anyways things are famous for a reason and that reason has little to do with innate “value” #and much more to do with how it plays into the interests of powerful institutions motivated to influence our shared cultural narratives #so i'm not saying 'stop teaching shakespeare'. but like...maybe classrooms should stop using it as busy work that (by accident or designs) #happens to alienate a large number of students who could otherwise be engaging critically with works that feel more relevant to their world #(by merit of not being 4 centuries old or lacking necessary historical context or requiring untaught translation skills) #and yeah...MAYBE our educational institutions could spend less time/money on shakespeare critical analysis and more on... #...any of thousands of underfunded areas of literary research i literally (pun!) don't know where to begin #oh and p.s. the modern publishing world is in shambles and it would be neat if schoolwork could include modern works? #beautiful complicated socially relevant works of literature are published every year. it's not just the 'classics' that have value #and actually modern publications are probably an easier way for students to learn the basics. since lesson plans don't have to include the #important historical/cultural context many teens need for 20+ year old media (which is older than their entire lived experience fyi)

[puddingcatbeans]

to be perfectly honest. i don't care if it is cheesy or cliched or idealistic. i like stories where the core of it is about kindness, the warmth we can offer others and the gentleness we receive in return. maybe the moral of the story IS love triumphs. it better fucking be

#beanstalks #thoughts #tired of all the 'and the real monsters were us all along' #like yea we live in a society (derogatory) but also #we live in a society (in awe)

[embraceyourdestiny]

to any americans who feel "paralyzed" and "dont know what to do" to help with gaza:

reading a fucking book. i beg of you.

in a time of knowledge suppression is it your duty to arm yourself with knowledge.

read about americas occupations in the middle east.

read about 9/11 from outside of america and see how they inflicted senseless harm and violence to countless amounts of people and have been suppressing your rights for the past 2 fucking decades.

read about any of the countless wars from the past 30 years. especially from a civilian's. and the victims and survivors' perspective. listen to the horror stories and do not plug your fucking ears as to what your country is doing.

and read about fucking gaza and palestine and keep up with what is happening no matter how "sad" or "uncountable" you might get.

dont look away from this.

you dont have the right to be comfortable during countless active genocides.

if you're knowledgeable, you're powerful, and our current state doesnt fucking want that.

you have the power to change things if you open your eyes and scream to the world.

wake the fuck up.

Edit: please check the reblogs there are readings and ways to help

#og #truly if youre not about it your against it and i dont fuck with you because you're complacent #wake the fuck up #we're all responsible and dont you dare say you're not #americans need to stop living in the world with their eyes closed and their ears covered #look at what your fucking 'glorious country' is doing to people #everyone should be against america no fucking exceptions because america is violent and evil and needs to be stopped #then read about what america has done to the natives of their land #radicalize yourself #decolonize your mind #free palestine #land back #palestine will be free #theres too many fucking movements of just the past couple years all happening at once to act like the world is fucking fine #we are in a human rights CRISIS #WAKE THE FUCK UP PLEASE

[deep-space-netwerk]

So Venus is my favorite planet in the solar system - everything about it is just so weird.

It has this extraordinarily dense atmosphere that by all accounts shouldn't exist - Venus is close enough to the sun (and therefore hot enough) that the atmosphere should have literally evaporated away, just like Mercury's. We think Earth manages to keep its atmosphere by virtue of our magnetic field, but Venus doesn't even have that going for it. While Venus is probably volcanically active, it definitely doesn't have an internal magnetic dynamo, so whatever form of volcanism it has going on is very different from ours. And, it spins backwards! For some reason!!

But, for as many mysteries as Venus has, the United States really hasn't spent much time investigating it. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, sent no less than 16 probes to Venus between 1961 and 1984 as part of the Venera program - most of them looked like this!

The Soviet Union had a very different approach to space than the United States. NASA missions are typically extremely risk averse, and the spacecraft we launch are generally very expensive one-offs that have only one chance to succeed or fail.

It's lead to some really amazing science, but to put it into perspective, the Mars Opportunity rover only had to survive on Mars for 90 days for the mission to be declared a complete success. That thing lasted 15 years. I love the Opportunity rover as much as any self-respecting NASA engineer, but how much extra time and money did we spend that we didn't technically "need" to for it to last 60x longer than required?

Anyway, all to say, the Soviet Union took a more incremental approach, where failures were far less devastating. The Venera 9 through 14 probes were designed to land on the surface of Venus, and survive long enough to take a picture with two cameras - not an easy task, but a fairly straightforward goal compared to NASA standards. They had…mixed results.

Venera 9 managed to take a picture with one camera, but the other one's lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 10 also managed to take a picture with one camera, but again the other lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 11 took no pictures - neither lens cap deployed this time.

Venera 12 also took no pictures - because again, neither lens cap deployed.

Lotta problems with lens caps.

For Venera 13 and 14, in addition to the cameras they sent a device to sample the Venusian "soil". Upon landing, the arm was supposed to swing down and analyze the surface it touched - it was a simple mechanism that couldn't be re-deployed or adjusted after the first go.

This time, both lens caps FINALLY ejected perfectly, and we were treated to these marvelous, eerie pictures of the Venus landscape:

However, when the Venera 14 soil sampler arm deployed, instead of sampling the Venus surface, it managed to swing down and land perfectly on….an ejected lens cap.

#space #space history #venus #NASA #Venera #spost #I will talk all day about venus #ask me about venus floating sky cities #unpopular opinion venus > mars #this is probably my favorite space history story #the surface of venus is made of lens caps #don't try to tell me the universe doesn't have a sense of humor #well #I guess its more that people have a sense of humor and we happen to live in the universe

[quibbs]

just had SO much fun with the fallout tv show... i love you missus okey dokey

#fallout #fallout tv show #my art #lucy maclean #i was not expecting it to be so good but it was!! delightful #i think i like video game adaptations better when they do their own thing with it lol #such a relief to instead of seeing something regurgitated mindlessly for profit #its actually just a completely fresh story but in a familiar setting. cool balm on my skin #i guess that's where i'm at in the remake hell we all live in rn #ella purnell has the sweetest biggest eyes i've ever god damn seen

[secondbeatsongs]

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"

#the truman show #sbs rambles #I keep thinking about how children on popular youtube channels should probably have laws to protect them #social workers assigned to them maybe #I dunno #they did not sign up to have their lives sold for profit #but here we are #tho #I guess none of us signed up for it #and our data is harvested more than ever #god #high-tech capitalism sucks turns out #OH WAIT because tumblr is bad at getting context sometimes #let me specify: #I am not saying that the movie The Truman Show is bad or that it normalizes this #like all good sci-fi (because it is kind of sci-fi) it's there to warn us of what the future could hold #and it did that in a very good way - it's a beautiful movie #I could see someone with a bad faith take assuming I meant that it was part of the problem #it absolutely wasn't. it didn't normalize this; we did #youtube did and social media #it's us that's the problem #or more specifically: big corporations and a lack of regulation #that's the origin of most modern problems

[hack-saw2004]

platforming palestinian joy is just as important as sharing the suffering they're enduring during this genocide. despite continued displacement and bombardment, you cannot steal their joy and spirit. happy birthday to this sweet baby 🖤🇵🇸 may they grow up to see a free palestine

edit: @saffronlesbian made a video description for this post!!

[vd: a screen recording of a tweet from the 20th of April 2024 with 2.5 million views, from Ruhi @/ruhi_hi. the caption reads, "This video of this little Palestinian angel celebrating his bday in a refugee camp" followed by three emoji of a smiling face with teary eyes. the video clip is 11 seconds long and shows a one-year-old baby seated on the sandy ground, smiling hugely and clapping his hands while people sing to him from offscreen and a large cake is placed in front of him. stuck into the top of the cake is a decoration that reads "happy birthday" in english. the video has the tiktok handle @/ibrahim.jamal99 visible in it. /end vd.]

#free palestine #end aid to israel #current events #palestine genocide #let gaza live #save palestine #end the genocide #end the occupation #joy as an act of resistance #boycott divest sanction #from the river to the sea #free palestine in our lifetime #mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living #no one is free until we are all free #palestine will be free #dont stop talking about palestine

[helyeahmangocheese]

hey gays how are we feeling knowing she leads her cabin to change the tide of the battle of manhattan after her patroclus dies in her armor? i feel really normal and ok about it lol.

#5 years for her and these very same campers. that's all #I hope we see more of her and silena before the inevitable end #percy jackson #clarrise la rue #ruegard #pjo #percy jackson disney+ #percy jackson live action #pjotv #percy jackson and the olympians #the last olympian #pjo ep 2

[wearenotjustnumbers2]

"Why is there no doctors or scientists or educated people in gaza?" Because Israel is killing them all. The majority of the population in gaza are under 18, Israel kills them before they get to college, and also kills the ones who do.

#we all dream of living to see a free Palestine and to fight for it #but not all of us make it #we are not numbers #not statistics #palestine #gaza #israel #important #current events #ethnic cleansing #free palestine #free gaza #gaza strip #gaza under attack #gaza under genocide #israel apartheid #israel is a terrorist state #usa #america #UN

[tawaifeddiediaz]

you know what boils my blood.

over the last 2 weeks, i've seen countless patients walk into my urgent care center, symptomatic for so many things, refusing to get tested for covid and flu, citing that they don't want to knowingly bring it to their holiday tables. i had a patient tell me, verbatim, "i don't want to test for covid, because i don't want to be the asshole who brings it on a plane."

i understand that - i understand that holidays are times where people look forward to meeting loved ones that they might only see once a year, or where they get a break from the hectic back and forth of their lives.

but here's the thing - whether they get tested or not, they will bring whatever they have to their holiday tables. it's pure recklessness to know that you're sick, and walk into someone else's house spreading the disease.

today, january 2, i saw 91 patients, many of them who have tested positive for covid and flu. many of these patients are the same ones who didn't want testing 3 days ago, until their events were over, and now, they will have to reach out to everyone they know to let them know that they were positive because they were showing symptoms well before their event.

the next week or two? we're going to see many, many more, all people with symptoms that started around christmas. these are the only two viruses we test for rapidly in our office, but they are potent and can be fatal in many people.

so here's why i wrote this post, and maybe it's a little late, but - if you care about your loved ones, please get tested if you know you're sick. it doesn't have to be at a clinic if you don't want it to, because the over-the-counter tests work just fine too (if you test within 5-7 days of symptom onset). just...please don't try to run from the knowledge that you might have covid, because immunocompromised people, elderly people, people with co-morbidities like asthma, pregnancy, diabetes, etc...many of them may not recover. and they may not be sitting at your holiday table in the future because of it.

#zee rambles #this isn't to guilt trip anyone #but im so so tired of people coming in and just refusing testing because they want to see grandma or whatever #and on top of that people are avoiding vaccinations and all that too?? #we all lived through the pandemic - everyone saw how many people unfortunately passed away from it #now because of vaccinations and some amount of herd immunity we're finding milder cases in healthy people #but that doesn't mean its gone #that doesn't mean it doesn't have long-term repercussions even in healthy people and that doesn't mean people aren't still dying from it #honestly i just needed a lil rant #and if this helps at least one person??? im all for it #also i can't sleep so here we are spilling thoughts into the voidddd

[pickled-flowers]

Sex positivity is also about not calling Ace people prude and using virgin as an insult 👍 hope that helps

#sex positivity is also respecting sex lives that dont look like yours #or lack thereof #and insulting people by saying they dont fuck make you sound stupid <3 #im sorry i just cant take people who use their sex lives as a flex seriously its just not my thing! #like yea having lots of kinky sex is cool but not having sex and not being interested by sex is also cool #one is not better than the other the human experience is just very varied and diverse #its normal you wont understand everyone your brain isnt even made to comprehend how many human there are in the world #but we should all have spaces to navigate our sex lives as we wish even if that means interacting with sex as a subject as little as possibl

[thecosmicpunk]

Nex Benedict was an Indigenous, Two Spirit, Trans teenager who was murdered by three other students who attacked them in a school bathroom.

This is what we fight for, this is what we march for, this is what we have Pride for.

Because of the Anti-Trans hate and violence that is continuously being spewed.

Nex was a TEENAGER! WHO WAS BEATEN TO DEATH!

You say protect the children well NEX WAS A CHILD! WHERE WAS THEIR PROTECTION?

Nex I am so sorry, I'm so sorry this was done to you, you deserved to live a life full of love and joy. 💛💜🖤

Say his name, and never forget them.

Nex Benedict.

#nex benedict #transgender #trans #nonbinary #enby #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqa #punk #no one is free until we are all free #remember the martyrs and fight for the living #queer #pride #solarpunk #lgbtqia #trans rights #lgbtqia2s #two spirit #choctaw